Where to begin vol. 8

Once you are able to open a checking account for your business, you can start writing checks directly through your QuickBooks® checking chart of account, but in the meantime, you need to track everything through your equity account so you can take the deduction without forgetting about it when it comes time to do your taxes. After your business account is open and you have to deposit money from your personal account to cover business bills, the deposit entry would come from your Capital Contribution account to your business checking account. Wells Fargo® is the most convenient online bank that I have found. When you sign up for online banking, you can add all accounts, whether business or personal, that are connected to your Social Security number and transfer money between the accounts without having to handwrite a check and go to the bank to deposit it. What a great invention! FDIC does regulate the number of wire transfers and online transfers that you can do per month.

If you already own your vehicle without a monthly loan payment, the only suggestion is to take the mileage deduction. If you have a loan payment on your car. and the depreciation, gasoline, registration, and insurance exceed the standard mileage deduction of 0.36 cents per mile, then start using those expenses towards your business. You can also amortize your auto loan to recover the interest on the loan as well. Keep in mind though, whether or not you take all of the expenses and depreciation associated with your car. or just the standard mileage deduction, you still need to make a mileage log! If you do not furnish this information and you are involved in an audit, you will lose that deduction!

When you are bringing in new clients, you can customize your invoices on QuickBooks Pro® to your specific needs. You can set up sub accounts on your income as well, to see where the majority of your revenue is coming from. I had mine set up to break down Audits. On-Site Bookkeeping. General Accounting. Fraud and Taxes.

QuickBooks Pro® also has time tracking. Peachtree® has Timeslips, but it is separate software from Peachtree®. This is very convenient for accountants and attorneys who bill for their time. You can keep track of how long you're spending on a particular client by logging on the time sheet as soon as you're finished with your work for that day. When you are ready to bill that client, you only need to select Time box on the invoice and you can click on each day and time duration that you want to bill that client for. This will also help you tremendously if you pick up any clients who are attorneys. As we all know, they bill for everything ...